Army psychiatrist kills 11, injures 32 on Texas military base

See also:

• Soldiers killing soldiers rare, but not unheard of
• Relatives say war stories turned shooting suspect against military

FORT HOOD, Texas — The bloody scene might have been drawn from the scarred memories of Iraq war veterans assigned to this Army outpost in the hills of Central Texas: 12 dead and 31 wounded, gunned down in a sudden attack.

But Thursday's bloody assault at Fort Hood was committed by one of the Army's own. As night fell across the nation's largest military outpost on Thursday, investigators sought to explain why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist, turned a pair of pistols on his comrades.

Late Thursday, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone and Col. Ben Danner gave an account of the chaos and carnage that began about 1:30 p.m. inside two buildings that house psychiatric, medical and dental units:

Hasan used two handguns, including a semi-automatic, to fire at fellow soldiers. Neither of the guns was military-issue.

As Hasan fired, an unidentified female civilian officer managed to shoot him at least once before being shot herself.

The gunman was finally felled by four bullets and airlifted by medical helicopter to an undisclosed hospital, where he underwent surgery. Cone said Hasan was in critical condition but "his death is not imminent."

The general said that many of the military personnel used life-saving skills learned as part of their training. He described a scene where people were "ripping their uniforms and taking care of each other."

Still unexplained Thursday night was the motive for Hasan's attack.

Asked if it could be considered a terrorist attack, Cone replied, "I couldn't rule that out" but said the evidence does not point to that.

Family members said Hasan, a native-born Virginian and 1997 biochemistry graduate of Virginia Tech University, had been distraught over an impending overseas deployment.

Hasan had been posted to Fort Hood in July after serving for six years at Water Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He was unmarried, authorities said.

Nader Hasan, a cousin of the gunman, told Fox News that Hasan had suffered harassment from comrades over his Middle Eastern heritage.

"He is a good American," Hasan told the news channel. "We are shocked."

While wounded were being transported to hospitals around the area, authorities ordered the massive post closed. About 120,000 to 130,000 people live or work on the post, one of the country's largest military installations.

"It's a terrible tragedy. It's stunning," Cone told reporters gathered outside the vast facility northeast of Austin, Texas. "Soldiers and family members and many of the great civilians who work here are absolutely devastated."

At the Military Personnel Center, where arriving soldiers are processed and records updated, civilian employee Poi Shaffer was updating records for a soldier when she heard sirens on Battalion Avenue-about a mile away from the scene of the shooting.

"I heard sirens, ambulances, fire trucks, all kinds of stuff," said Shaffer. "At first I thought it was a wreck, but I kept hearing more sirens. It kept going on."

When she finished processing the soldier's records, she checked her phone and saw her husband, who works on the base for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, had been trying to call her. Her husband phoned again and said urgently: "Where are you? Stay put."

Her husband was close enough to the scene of the attack to hear the gunfire, said Shaffer.